20201206 Sun

阿迪网课英语

高二英语

01.News

Covid is killing more than 2,000 people a day in the U.S. as infections and hospitalizations hit records

For the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. is reporting a weekly average of more than 2,000 Covid-19 deaths every day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, as infections rip through the country and record hospitalizations tax the nation’s health-care system.

More than 2,600 people died from Covid on Friday after more than 2,800 fatalities were reported on Thursday, a single-day record of the pandemic. More than 2,000 people have died everyday from the virus since the month began.

The U.S. reported more than 227,800 Covid-19 cases on Friday, a record-breaking spike as more people are hospitalized with the virus than at any other point during the pandemic.

The U.S. is reporting a record weekly average of 182,663 cases a day as states work to catch up to normal reporting schedules after building a backlog over the Thanksgiving holiday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins.

However, the nation’s hospitals are reporting a record number of patients — 101,276 people — sickened with Covid-19, a sign that the outbreak is growing more severe, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project, which is run by journalists at The Atlantic.

“The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult in the public health history of this nation, largely because of the stress that’s going to be put on our health-care system,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Wednesday.

In a dire warning on Wednesday, President-elect Joe Biden said that 250,000 more people “between now and January” are projected to die from Covid “because people aren’t paying attention.” More than 279,000 people in the U.S. have already died since the pandemic began and more than 14.3 million have been infected with the virus, according to Johns Hopkins data.

To slow the virus’ spread, Biden said on Thursday that he would mandate mask wearing on all federal property and on interstate transportation as soon as he’s sworn in. He said he would also ask all Americans to wear a mask for 100 days to reduce transmission.

“Just 100 days to mask,” Biden said. “Not forever. 100 days.”

The wave of Covid patients is adding stress to hospital systems nationwide. States like New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have erected field hospitals to prepare for an influx of sick patients.

Unlike the spring when the rush of coronavirus patients spurred health-care workers from across the country to travel to hotspots like New York to help treat the sick, hospital systems across the country are facing their own emergencies with no room to spare, experts say.

“If we talked about these two issues of capacity and staffing, it’s really about having the staff to care for people,” Nancy Foster, vice president of quality and patient safety at the American Hospital Association, told CNBC earlier this week. “You can get creative without a bed, but nurses and doctors and respiratory therapist and other staff are critical. And you can’t just invent those overnight.”

In Iowa, rural critical access facilities have historically struggled to recruit health-care workers like nurses, respiratory therapists and physicians, said Eli Perencevich, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at the University of Iowa. The state is reporting a weekly average of 43 Covid-19 deaths every day, its highest level since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins data.

“It’s a major issue even without the pandemic, and then when you add that the hospitals are being kind of overwhelmed and when you have staff being sick all the time, it’s been really untenable,” Perencevich told CNBC on Saturday.

Health-care workers will be spread thin as the number of patients grows, with some of them falling ill with Covid-19 themselves.

While the medical community has learned how to better treat Covid-19 patients, “the number one risk for dying from coronavirus in the hospital is whether or not doctors and nurses are overwhelmed, overstretched, or if they have the time to spend with every single patient really carefully monitoring everything,” Dr. Celine Gounder, a Covid-19 advisor to Biden and an infectious disease specialist at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told MSNBC on Thursday.

02.Listening

Re-cycling is easy

Jeff: You have a lovely house Joan.

Joan: Thanks Jeff. I try hard to keep it clean and tidy.

Jeff: Why do you have three different color trash-cans though?

Joan: I have separate trash-cans for bottles, papers and food scraps. 

Jeff: That seems like a lot of bother. I just put it all together and then throw it out.

Joan: So you don't make any effort to re-cycle at all?

Jeff: Nope. I think Mother nature will be fine without my help.

Joan: If you don't re-cycle for yourself, you should think of what the planet will be like for your children.

Jeff: That's a point of view that I have not considered.

Joan: Re-cycling is easy and can make a huge difference to the world we live in!

03.Reading

Singapore Approves Sale of Lab-Grown Meat

Singapore's government has approved the sale of a laboratory-grown chicken meat. The American company that invented the product, Eat Just, says it is the first time lab-grown meat has received such approval anywhere in the world.

Lab-grown meat – also called clean or cultured meat – is created from animal cells in a laboratory. The product is made without harming animals. The cells grow directly into the meat, outside of any animal.

The Eat Just product is to be sold as small pieces, called nuggets. The product is set to launch at a Singapore restaurant "in the very near term," the company's CEO Josh Tetrick told Reuters news agency.

Singapore is an island city-state of 5.7 million people.

Demand for alternatives to animal meat is rising across the world because of public concerns about health, animal welfare and the environment. Plant-based products - popularized by companies like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Quorn - are selling in a growing number of stores and restaurants.

But the development of lab-grown meat has been much slower than that of plant-based versions. The main reason for the delay is money. Lab-grown meat costs a lot more to produce.

Tetrick said the San Francisco-based company is also seeking approvals from U.S. government agencies. But he added that Singapore was a "good bit" ahead of the United States.

The Singapore Food Agency said it examined data from processing, manufacturing control and safety testing before approving Eat Just sales. Tetrick said it is likely that the U.S. and countries in Europe and elsewhere will examine Singapore's approval system and will attempt to create a similar process.

Eat Just said it will manufacture the product in Singapore. The company also plans to start making a plant-based egg substitute there that it is already selling in the United States.

Eat Just was founded in 2011 and has raised more than $300 million, Tetrick said. The company is valued at around $1.2 billion.

Worldwide, more than 24 companies are testing lab-grown fish, cow and chicken meat. They are hoping to break into a new part of the alternative meat market. Financial experts at Barclays Bank have estimated the market could be worth up to $140 billion by 2029.

Competitors in the market have also been able to raise large amounts of money and win support from well-known investors.

U.S.-based Memphis Meats raised money this year in a deal led by Japan's SoftBank Group and Singapore-based Temasek. Among the Memphis Meats' investors are Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Virgin Group chief Richard Branson.

In Singapore, Shiok Meats aims to become the first company to sell lab-grown shrimp. The company is backed by Henry Soesanto of the Philippines' Monde Nissin Corporation, which also owns Quorn.